Cracked Sugar Cookies

Made these sugar cookies waaaaay back for the 4th of July to take to the lake and give to our camping neighbors (hence the red, white, and blue sprinkles!) but I've made twice since then without sprinkles because they are so good everyone wants more hahaha. Dave says they remind him of shortbread cookies, I'm assuming that's because of the lack of egg whites (?), and oddly enough the older the cookies get the more they taste like shortbread and the better he likes them. He wanted to give the neighbors another baggie of them last weekend and I said no way, they are like 3 weeks old at this point! He argued that they are still great but I'm not giving out old cookies...having said that - if you want a cookie that tastes great fresh or weeks old, you're going to love this one LOL. 

• 2 1/2 cup flour
• 1 t. baking soda
• 1/2 t. cream of tartar
• 1 cup butter (2 sticks), softened
• 1 1/4 cup sugar
• 3 egg yolks
• 1 t. vanilla

Sift 1st 3 together and set aside. 

Beat butter and sugar together until fluffy. Beat in yolks and vanilla. Gradually add flour mixture in 4 parts, until well blended.

Shape into tablespoon sized balls (I use my small cookie scoop), put on greased cookies sheet (or line sheets with parchment paper) and do not flatten. Bake at 350' for approx 8-10 minutes.

makes 36 cookies (note: the recipe says it makes 36 but using my small scoop I get a lot more, more like 48)

                             

note: I added sprinkles to the batter to make them 'patriotic' - you could add other colors and shapes if you want, or just leave them as plain old white yummy sugar cookies. Mmmm, you could frost too! 

these are slightly puffy when you pull out of oven, they'll flatten as they cool

Obviously it took me a while to get around posting these, now it's almost time for black and orange sprinkles for Halloween, brown and yellow for Thanksgiving, red and green for Christmas! See, these cookies are perfect all year 'round ;) 

Butterscotch Sugar Cookies

Here's another cookie recipe from that Joanne Fluke murder with recipes book I read that wasn't very good but this recipe is! In fact, I gave some to my sis and asked for their opinion - she said Brooke deemed them "money" ... 'nuf said.

The recipe says it makes 5-7 dozen but I did not want 5-7 dozen cookies so I cut the recipe in half...and it still made 4.5 dozen. Fortunately they are so good that everyone wants them and I don't "have" to eat them all myself ;)

The only other change I made is to stir whole butterscotch chips into the batter - I only did a big handful but it's a really good addition and next time I will had lots more! Here is the original recipe, cut all ingredients in half if you want less cookies - and add chips to the batter if you want (and you do!).

Oh, and by the way - I don't think I've ever made a batch of cookies that turned out so uniform in size and shape! These would be perfect to package in a rectangle carton or anything that makes them line up in a straight row.

• 2 cups salted butter (4 sticks)
• 1 cup butterscotch chips
• 2 cups powdered sugar
• 1 cup white sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon cream of tartar
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 4 and 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

• 1/2 cup white sugar in a bowl for coating the cookie dough balls before baking

Preheat oven to 325', rack in the middle of oven.

Melt the butter and butterscotch chips in a microwave-safe bowl by putting the chips on the bottom of the bowl and the butter on top of that. Heat for one minute on high, let the bowl sit in the microwave for one minute, and then try to stir it smooth. If you can, you're done. If not, continue to heat in 30-second intervals until you can stif the mixture smooth. Set in on the counter to cool.

When the mixture has cooled to slightly above room temperature, pour it into a mixing bowl or the bowl of an electric mixer. Add the powdered sugar and the white sugar. Beat until the mixture is smooth. 

Add the eggs, one at a time, beating after each addition. Mix in the vanilla extract until it's well combined. Add the baking soda, cream of tartar, and salt. Mix until everything is thoroughly combined.

Add the flour in half-cup increments, mixing after each addition. (The reason for this is adding it all at once will go all over the counter when you turn the mixer on! Add the flour slowly). Note: Stir in the butterscotch chips by hand if you are adding them.

Prepare you cookie sheets either by spraying them with non-stick baking spray, or line them with parchment paper.

Place a half-cup of white sugar in a bowl. Roll one-inch cookie dough balls with your fingers (I use a 2 teaspoon scooper to form the balls). Dip the dough balls in the sugar and roll around until they are coated. Place the balls on the cookie sheet, 12 dough balls to a standard size sheet.

Flatten the dough balls with a metal spatula (or your fingertips). This will make them bake evenly. If you leave them on the cookie sheet without flattening them, they will flatten out during baking, but the insides will be chewy instead of melt-in-your-mouth crispy.

Bake at 325' for 12 minutes until lightly golden around the edges. 

Makes 5-7 dozen cookies.

10.11.2017: German chocolate bread
10.11.2016: how to repair a toilet lever
10.11.2015: acorn squash stuffed with meatloaf

Coffee and Cookie Brownies

Dave had his ukulele group's 16th anniversary party* the other day and without much notice asked if I'd make something for him to take to the potluck. He didn't care what because he said people bring so much food that no one would even notice what he brings, it all blends together. Well I took that as a personal challenge of course and had to make something that would be delicious and noticeable. I saw this online at Better Homes and Gardens - simple ingredients, something different, and what's not to like about brownies and cookies all in one?

I cut them in little bite sized pieces and put each one in a small baking cup just to jazz them up a bit. When he got back from the party the first words out of his mouth were "well those were a bit hit - they were eaten so fast I didn't even get one, and I had lots of comments about how good they were". Yep, goal achieved ;)

This is just about the easiest dessert ever - you literally spread store-bought cookie dough in a pan.  and top it with brownie batter. No excuse people to not try this one, there are barely any ingredients!

Ingredients:

• 1 tube of refrigerated sugar cookie dough (16 1/2 oz.)
• 2 eggs, lightly beaten
• 1 box of milk chocolate brownie mix
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil
• 1/3 cup coffee liqueur or cooled strong coffee (I used Kailua) 
• 1 cup semisweet or bittersweet chocolate pieces

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350'F. Press sugar cookie dough into the bottom of a 13x9 baking pan; set aside.
2. In a large bowl combine eggs, brownie mix, oil, and liqueur or coffee until just combined. Spread batter over sugar cookie dough. Sprinkle with chocolate pieces.
3. Bake for 25 minutes (see note below) or until edges are set. Cool in pan on a wire rack. To serve, cut into bars.

Note: the original recipe calls to bake for 40 minutes. I set my timer for 30 minutes and they were overbaked by about 5 minutes. Check them at 25, you can always bake longer if needed. I followed the recipe exactly except I sprinkled a bit of flaky sea salt over the brownie mix before baking - that little taste of salt every now and then is SO good!

makes 24 brownies. 279 cal each.

I crumbled up the tube of cookie dough and then pressed it out in  the pan. 

top with brownie mix, chocolate pieces, and salt if you want.

Dave's an original member of the "Southbay Strummers" - he's been playing uke for over 16 years? I don't care how long he's been playing and how good he is, we still have "uke-free" zones in the house!! HA!

two years ago: Easter bunny cakes

Emoji Cookies by Brooke

Brooke has a project coming up for school in a couple weeks and asked if I would practice it with her beforehand to make sure she could do it - I said sure, what's the project? Turns out it's making and decorating cookies to look like emoji's, yay! (I was worried it was going to be math or something I might not be able to help with hahaha, thank goodness it's baking and frosting!). We made sugar cookies following the directions on a bag of Betty Crocker mix - roll the cookies out on a floured surface and cut into small round circles. We used a 3" cookie cutter which I thought was a little big but that's what she wanted. In order to make the emoji faces smooth and harden so they won't get smooshed we made royal icing instead of buttercream - buttercream tastes better but royal icing is the way to go if you want a smooth, hard surface for decorating.

Royal Icing:
3 cups powdered sugar
2 egg whites (note: if you don't want to eat raw egg whites then substitute them with meringue powder)
1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar

Beat for about 5 minutes until smooth - the consistency should be thin enough to spread easily and almost puddle so you don't see lines in the icing, but not so thin it runs off the cookie. Add a touch of lemon juice if you need it a little thinner.

This recipe made just enough to frost and decorate one bag of sugar cookie mix, she got 15 big ones.